Gemotions

He slumped into the threadbare armchair, the springs protesting under his weight. A friend request from Brenda "The Bruiser" Bradley, it announced itself, a little red number glaring from the screen. Thomas had been wrestling with the quarterly report all day, his brain feeling like scrambled eggs. He rubbed his tired eyes.

He remembered her, all right. The playground battles, the stolen lunch money, the cutting remarks. He felt a dull ache in his chest, a memory of the hollow feeling that had clung to him for years. He closed his eyes, imagining the scent of stale chalk dust and the metallic tang of fear. He let out a long breath, a silent acknowledgment of the energy it took to just get through another day. He wasn’t sure he could face reliving any of that.